Doll
by coanteen
Summary: Chin Iisou's thoughts during the fight with Hakkai and the Sanzo ikkou. Hakkai's past when he was Cho Gonou is an issue.


Written as a result of a long bus ride and Shizuru's nagging. Oh yes, and my love for creepy dead guys.  
  
  
~Doll~  
  
By coanteen  
  
Disclaimer: I have never nor do I now own any of this, nor am I making money off it (except in my dreams. Then I wake up and cry).  
  
Author's notes: All quotes are from eps. 11 and 12 of the anime. Chin Iisou's POV, and knowledge of anime or manga would probably be a great benefit.  
  
  
* * * * * * * *  
  
_"You seem to have forgotten."_  
  
That you could actually forget me, that was a blow. That you didn't start and end each day with me in your thoughts, as I did with you in mine.  
  
Everyone I ever knew is gone because of you. My father, my entire clan, my life all gone in that one night. And you dare to forget my face, dare to go on with your life without that night constant in your thoughts?   
  
Through those three long years in which I tracked you, I never expected to find you in quite such a company. Look at yourself, Cho Gonou – you've done quite well, haven't you? Are these really your friends? Can you trust them with what you are? Or didn't you bother to tell them of that night at all? This isn't your true face you present to them. Your face is a lie but your eyes betray you when they look at me. Do they see what I see when you look at them, I wonder.  
  
_"Whenever I watch that tepid affection you share for each other, I don't feel pain, I feel sick"._  
  
What pathetic interaction your little party engages in. All the petty attachments you have built. You seek to regain what you lost through them, isn't that so? You can never regain what you lost that night, I've made sure of that. Because that night I lost my future, and laid the groundwork for regaining it. And today I will complete what you started.  
  
You think it is some petty vengeance that I wish to exact? Ah, but it is so much more. You will remember me when this is done, Cho Gonou. You must remember me; else all I've done will be lost.   
  
Dolls. I spend my life perfecting them, and you are my final masterpiece. It doesn't matter if you never acknowledge this, that you never even know it. It doesn't even matter that I never sought this, had never wanted it. This opportunity was given to me, and I will hold on to it because I have nothing else to hold on to. You took everything from me but this, my art. And everything I've ever created before you was a build-up to this moment, a gathering of potential, all towards this final product. I knew it when I first saw you; saw that expression on your face.   
  
_"My clan was slaughtered by you. All over a single meaningless woman."_  
  
I **_knew_** it. You…you knew nothing at all, felt nothing past your trivial human rage over that woman. Meaningless she was, in all respects but one – she was the reason you came to me, and your coming started this game. And we will play it out to the end, you and I.   
  
You'd have died that day, were it not for me. Wanted to die, even. Do you remember? Of course you do. Everything you've done since that day, all the tiny changes each being makes in its environment merely by living – erase them all. That's what would have happened without me.   
  
Of course, I should have died as well, shouldn't I? I'm sure you think so. But you see, I couldn't allow that to happen, not just then.   
  
_"Do you know why I did that? It was so I could meet you again, Cho Gonou."_  
  
The reason for your existence was gone when your lover died, yes. But you had become the reason for mine.  
  
Even as you tore me apart, I knew you were my greatest creation, the one doll that would ensure my own immortality. And as I put that mah-jongg tile into my body, already anticipating our next meeting, I was well aware of the apt irony – that we would face each other on equal terms.   
  
_"He's now no better than one of my dolls."_   
  
One doll would face another.  
  
My, you are surprising, aren't you? You and those friends of yours, so willing to fight and die for you, even knowing what you've done. I have to admit that I truly didn't expect that. Could the doll surmount its own creator?  
  
Perhaps. But it can never surmount itself, Cho Gonou. You are my creation, and you cannot help but carry out the task I have set for you.   
  
My father Hyakugan-Ma-Ou scorned my work, my lack of interest in his games. He never understood what was really important, what had the potential of lasting longer than a few bloody nights. Now that he is gone, him memory is already fading, alive only in the nightmares and sorrows of those touched most closely by his entertainments. It will die with them. Whereas I will live on through you. Every event you influence, every life you touch – I will have a hand in that, Cho Gonou, because I touched yours. Because I made you what you are.  
  
For as long as you live, I exist as well. Every change you make in this world will bear my imprint. My clan is gone and my name may not survive, but yours will. Your name will be in the thoughts of those friends of yours, in the thoughts of those yet unborn, and my name? My name will be in yours, carried forward into the future hidden safely inside that which is you. My little game with your red-haired friend was only that, you know - **_this_** is the true seed I have planted, and the seed survives, even if it never gets a chance to blossom again.  
  
_"I really do hate you from the bottom of my heart."_  
  
True, all my hate is for you. As is all my love, and everything in between. I made you, I put all of myself into your creation, into you. So how could it be otherwise? You think you bear the stain of blood, of your sin. It is **my** stamp you bear, Cho Gonou; it is that which will never wash off, no matter whose absolution you might seek. Because you cannot be absolved of me.  
  
My my, such highly wrought words at the end.  
  
_ "A being with no past or future"_?  
  
But that's hardly true, is it? I – _we_ – have a past, Cho Gonou. And we have a future, too. You are my future. 


End file.
